today about 666 present and former employees of the LA Times joined together to say goodbye to the Times building

our home away from home

our home

our home.

i saw so many people who i never thought would be there. i saw faces whose names i didnt remember. i saw people who looked EXACTLY as they did when I was last there.

and i love them all

it was all so sweet.

in many ways it was just like we left it

“new” carpet and equipment and tv and stuff but almost everything was in the same place.

yes amber and i took the tour last month but that was a limited thing and we didnt get to talk to too many people

but this was different, this was a real homecoming where we got to wander around the sprawling building. which was a little weird without a lot of the pictures that used to line the walls, and framed iconic newspaper front pages that saluted you as you walked through the ground floor.

there was the elevator that i once rode with Rihanna as she was visiting her then-boyfriend Chris Brown

there was the office i once received a gigantic bonus in

there was the bathroom i once took a cool selfie in

and there was the spot where my desk once was where i learned that Michael Jackson had died

and where i watched Barack Obama get elected.

i feel that i am so lucky because these are some of the smartest and sharpest minds in the entire game.

old cohorts who are now here there and everywhere. we are so spread out but tonight we were together mixed in with the young writers, some of whom, weirdly, i know too.

i am so happy, which is weird because i thought i was gonna be so sad. i thought i was gonna cry the whole time.

this was my dream job. this is where i had hoped i could work at for so long.

this is where i wrote about on this blog time after time after time, never truly believing i would ever work at

and then when i was gone, a place i had thought had totally forgotten about me.

i was so wrong. i am always so wrong.

turned out people did remember me. and some knew me who had never met me.

we talked and hugged and i drank and we took so many pictures and i even got a few parting gifts. which is crazy because the whole thing was a gift.

you can dream. you can tell everyone what you want. and at some point you might even get a shot at what you want.

and then its all about working working working to feel like you belong.

to feel like you deserve to be there.

i may never feel that way no matter how great our results were, but i was there.

i was in the game.

i got to see the thing from the inside

and i am so grateful, it’s crazy.

but you know whats really crazy? that in a few weeks this will all be gone.

the place where so much happened.

where everything and everyone happened

it will all be gone.

just more square footage to be rented out.

life is so bizarre

ask for what you want, then french kiss it.